One Shots
by Protected by a Silver Spoon
Summary: One shots. Based on prompts from Bethyl week on Tumblr or leave one in a review or PM!
1. Secret

Beth couldn't figure out how long it had been since she had showered. A few days before they left at least, it felt worse because of the sweat and blood. The last shower she remembered was at the prison and it had been gone for nearly a week now. They made a run into one of the small towns Daryl and Michonne had scoped out, he seemed to think that the pharmacy was still pretty well stocked.

After the store was secured, she started rummaging around the place. There wasn't any food or medicine, but she did find a package of baby wipes on the back of a shelf. Daryl moved around the small store picking up random things and either putting them back or shoving them in his pack. They emptied the place of everything they could use and headed back to their camp.

He did a quick sweep of the area and brought back a few squirrels for dinner. Things were more comfortable between them now, Daryl wasn't just staring off away from her anymore. He wasn't keeping a designated space between them. He sat right beside her by their small fire, his hand touched hers when she offered him some water. Every now and then she caught him looking at her and saw the way his ears reddened as he turned away.

"I'm gonna go clean up while those cook."

"Alright." He kept his eyes on cleaning their dinner.

She ducked into their makeshift tent and stripped down. Beth remembered back to her mom always keeping a package of baby wipes in the car and suddenly the image of her reaching into the glove box was all she could think of. She felt the loss of her family standing there in her underwear and bra underneath their sagging tarp that served as a home. Her chest shook as she pulled in deep breaths trying to calm herself, she closed her eyes and pretended the sun-warmed wipes could wash everything away.

She didn't hear him move to stand next to the tent. She didn't know he could hear her shaking breaths or see the line of her body through the opening. Beth didn't know that he saw the way her hands shook during the small moment it took for him to reach in and leave something beside her. She didn't know that he could see how much she missed her family, her normal life. She didn't know how much it affected him, seeing her hurting.

Beth finished cleaning up the best she could and turned around to put her shirt back on. Next to her folded pile of dirty clothes was an unopened stick of Secret. She almost sobbed at the familiar image. She opened it and breathed in the powder fresh scent. Beth closed her eyes and pretended she was getting ready in her room. She straightened her hair the best she could and put the deodorant on before pulling on her shirt. She felt stronger, something about the normalcy of the motion grounded her.

She stepped outside and saw the way Daryl kept glancing up at her, she could see him waiting for her to say something.

"Thank you. For that."

He turned his head towards her but kept his eyes down. "Mmhmm."

Beth let her hand touch his shoulder, "Really, Daryl."

"S'nothing. Didn't mean you needed it or nothin'. Just thought…"

"I needed it. Thanks." She let a smile pull at the corner of her mouth, "There's still some wipes left if you wanna wash up?"

"Alright." He walked into the tent and saw she had left the blue stick open next to the wipes. He picked it up and breathed in the clean scent that had mixed so nicely with her's. He didn't notice her standing there behind him, smirk on her face.

"You can use it if you want…strong enough for a man…"


	2. Red

Daryl Dixon had never really liked the color red. He remembered the reddish orange flames of his house, surrounded by the red firetrucks. He remembered reaching back to touch the welts on his back and having his dirt stained fingers come back sticky red. The red and blue flashing lights that took Merle away and left him alone to contend with their father. Blood, blood was the reddest when it came from people he cared about. He wondered what it would be like to be colorblind.

Daryl knew all about seeing red. Anger had been his go to emotion for most of his life, it was the one he was most familiar with, especially when it was swung around and pushed down inside on himself. When Rick told him about Merle on that roof, he saw red. At the CDC when Jenner had them locked in that room, he saw crimson. When he saw those tail lights flickering as they raced away down the dirt road he coulda sworn his vision would be red-tinged for the rest of his life.

He knew about having a red face. Embarrassment was another well known feeling for him. It teetered back and forth on the edge of inadequacy, a trait that had been beaten into him. It mainly showed up when faced with some mundane everyday thing that he had never really done before. He knew it showed up anytime someone had a good word to say about him, he knew it was there in the faded light when he couldn't answer her question.

Daryl knew about being a redneck. He knew the look people gave him when they heard his accent, his low, rough voice. It was worse if they saw him drink, heard him talk about hunting squirrels. He knew the assumptions people made, he loved throwing them off, reciting something word for word, referring to some old movie. His momma had told him he was smart, he still didn't believe it though, what good would it have done him anyhow?

He knew about painting the town red. He had done it with Merle. Getting trashed, living in a haze day after day. Doing whatever Merle said they would do, spending time with whoever he wanted them to. He knew all about red light districts too, how they left you feeling even more empty and alone than you had when there was money in your pocket.

He was all too familiar with being in the red. All of his childhood they had scrounged up whatever change they could for groceries. The good thing about the school year was that he ate a hot meal five times a week. The lights didn't always work at his dad's house and Daryl was used to having a hole in his stomach and in his shoes.

He couldn't think of any red-letter days in his life, he would reserve that for when he found her. Until then red had to stay what it was. A warning, danger. The color he saw every time he lost something. That angry, hateful piece inside his chest that wouldn't burn out. It had to stay that way. But the day he finds her, then he could acknowledge that red spark of celebration, like people had at Christmas. He would roll out a red carpet inside his head just for her. He would wear whatever red badge of courage he was dealt if it meant getting her back. He would do whatever it took to replace that color in his mind. Maybe he would be able to glimpse out of her rose-tinted glasses and somehow see the hue a different way. God, if he could just find her again, red could be nothing more than one single, perfect rose tucked into her hair.


	3. Numb

Daryl liked to pretend he was numb. It was a game he had come up with when he was a kid, lyin' in bed on his stomach picking the fletching off old arrows. It wasn't like his dad laid into him like that everyday, but the days that he did, Daryl pretended he could just pop that sore, torn up body off and use a different one. Like the Lego people he had found discarded on the playground. He'd think about the way it felt when he fell asleep on his arm and try to make the rest of himself feel like a snowy television screen. It got easier and easier to rely on that as he got older. Just pretend to be numb, pretend like his brain couldn't process the words thrown at him, pretend his nerves were all dead, and nothing could hurt anymore.

Carol was the first one, the first person to ever really call him out on it. He hated that she could see it. That sameness that they shared, she knew what it was. She knew how he turned himself off from feeling, or at least liked to think he did. He never had to tell her anything about the way he had grown up, how he had lived before. She could see, she could understand.

Beth saw it too. She saw that way he would go numb, trying to make himself feel nothing but pins and needles, stare off into the fire and imagine it was a snowy, buzzing TV. She saw it and she didn't understand. She called him out. She saw the way he opted out, she saw it for exactly what it was and she called him out. She made it impossible for him to go there, that numb, unfeeling place.

Daryl sat there, in that crossroad, and tried. He tried harder than he ever had to go numb. To lose the tightness in his chest, the panic in his gut, the pounding guilt, the absolute agony that she was right. He could feel it all, and for the first time in years he couldn't do it. He couldn't turn it off, he couldn't go numb.


	4. Enchanted

It was the only word to describe the way he felt about her. Enchanted. Growing up in a well kept house, always having food on the table at dinner times, not having to sidestep piles of trash on the floor. Being able to find the tiniest spark of good, the smallest beam of light, no matter what they were being faced with. He had seen her bedroom, it was ingrained in his memory. Each room in that house was. He had felt so out of place there, but the comfort that Beth, Maggie, and Hershel so obviously found there with each other was captivating. The night he had spent dozing in the first floor bedroom was one he would remember, he heard them say good night, he knew now that it had been Beth's gentle voice talking to her father. It was that sound that fascinated him. Soft words, pauses where he could picture a hug or a kiss on the cheek, he closed his eyes and tried to remember if his mother had ever done that, tried to imagine a soft voice saying goodnight.

Hershel had checked on him once during the night, making sure the stitches held, giving him another dose of antibiotics. Hardly said a word.

Early that morning, before anyone from their group was back in the house, there was a soft knock on the door. The sun was just coming up and Daryl was surprised to see the young blond in the doorway.

"Good mornin'." He let his eyes slip closed for a brief moment. He let her voice sink into him, pretended he heard it everyday. Daryl filed that two word greeting away in the back of his head.

"Daddy said you need another dose of these." She held up a pill bottle and glass of water and came into the room.

He carefully tucked the sheet around his body before reaching out to take what she offered.

"Did you manage to sleep alright?"

"I dunno, guess so." He answered her quietly, wanting to hear her speak again. He wanted to hear that soft tone from the night before. Daryl kept his eyes on the foot of the bed and tracked her movement across the room by listening to the floorboards creak under her steps.

"I'll bring you some breakfast if you're feeling up to it."

She was closer to him now, picking up the empty glass from the night stand.

"A'right."

"Alright, I'll be back."

Their first interaction was mundane. Nothing stood out to him other than that soft tone she had spoken to him with. It wasn't something he had directed at him on a regular basis, before her that is. Those months, the ones they spent on the road, he kept a catalogue of every word she spoke to him. It was something about her easy confidence, the way she never shied away from him, the way she seemed to know how to approach him in a way that he could never turn from.

"If you show me how, I'll help you with the squirrel." She gave him just enough time to glance up at her before going on.

"You're always the one hunting, teach me how to clean them so you can rest."

The sureness, the way she praised him and gave him an order all at once, Daryl didn't know what else to do other than nod and show her.

It was different at the prison. He was so focused on what he needed to do, between Hershel, Lori and the baby, then Rick, he couldn't take a breath without being pulled in another direction. But she sang, he heard that. He watched her too. The way the words effortlessly become melodies. He couldn't look away.

He made his rounds at night while she was settling the baby. He would never admit to lingering when he heard her voice softly lulling the little one to sleep.

One night he found himself outside her cell just as she laid Judith down in her makeshift crib.

"Hey."

He stopped in his tracks. His breath caught a little in his throat and he had to cough a bit to hide it. "Just checking in."

She smiled at him, "Thanks."

"Mmhmm."

He watched her take a step in his direction.

"Goodnight, Daryl."

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath in. For a second he imagined her arms around him and the way her hair might smell as he kissed the top of her head. He imagined how the warmth of her hand on the side of his face would feel and the look of reflected light in her eyes when they met his. He let her voice do that to him, just like it had that night on the farm. That night that he had laid there alone, in a nicer bed than any he had ever had, and pictured her soothing voice whispering to him. He opened his eyes and nodded at her.

"Night… Beth."


End file.
